The present invention relates generally to the field of electrical devices, such as for instrumentation and control applications. The invention particularly relates to a technique for providing enhanced thermal transfer within and from a sealed enclosure of the type used in modular industrial equipment.
Many applications exist for instrumentation and control devices, particularly in industrial settings. Such settings may include manufacturing operations, mining operations, material handling, transportation, natural resource exploitation, agricultural and food processing, to mention just a few. In conventional approaches to such systems, centralized locations have been provided at which various types of control and monitoring equipment will be interconnected and housed. Where environmental conditions require isolation of the components from the environment, enclosures and housings have typically been built to support and protect the components. Such system architectures, however, have inherent drawbacks. For example, power and data signals, where the equipment is controlled or monitored via networks, must be routed to and from actuators, sensors, motors, and so forth by means of cabling running between the centralized enclosures and the actual equipment. Moreover, centrally locating all components may be quite difficult, and troubleshooting, servicing, repair and replacement of components may require sharing of time between the equipment or application location and the centralized enclosures.
Approaches have been developed in response to such drawbacks whereby components are interconnected and located in a more distributed fashion. That is, control and monitoring equipment may be positioned in a more closely associated fashion to the ultimate application, with sensors, actuators, prime movers, and so forth being simply interconnected with the control and monitoring equipment thus distributed throughout the machine or application. While not providing a centralized enclosure or architecture for assembly and servicing, such approaches have the benefit of allowing close placement of the control and monitoring equipment to the application, facilitating interconnection with the controlled or monitored equipment, and allowing for servicing in a closing adjacent physical setting.
System architectures providing such distributed control and monitoring functions come with additional challenges, however. For example, the control and monitoring components, now removed from the protective central enclosures, must be capable of withstanding the sometimes harsh environments of the final application. Such environmental conditions may include exposure to significant variations in temperature, chemically corrosive atmospheres, dusty or dirty air, and precipitation and humidity, in addition to washdowns which are required or can occur in certain settings. These conditions tend to require that the control and monitoring components be sealed in a component housing or structure. Depending upon the type of components thus housed, removal of heat generated during operation may become a significant obstacle to system design and operation. Moreover, the modularity affordable through the use of centralized enclosures is somewhat lost in conventional approaches to distributed control and monitoring insomuch as the components must be interconnected and interfaced with one another to provide the desired operability, protection, and termination.
There is a significant need in the art for improved techniques for sealed electrical component and system design. In particular, there is a need for component packaging solutions which provide for sealed housings which can be cooled to efficiently eliminate heat generated during operation of the control and monitoring components. There is a similar significant need for thermally managed and sealed electrical component housings which afford some degree of modularity in the selection, assembly and interconnection of various system components, including motor starters, protective circuitry, input/output components and circuitry, inverter drives, and so forth.